politics to go: jeff dunetz

As Bibi talks to Congress, mute Democrats stand idly by

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As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stepped up to the congressional podium on Tuesday, it was in an environment of open warfare against the Jewish state by President Obama’s Democratic Party.

Make no mistake about it, this crisis between Israel and the Administration was created by the President and supported by the Democrats — those who boycotted the speech and those who remained silent. 

This split serves the President’s goals, which are to ensure that Netanyahu loses the upcoming Israeli election, stopping the Jewish state from damaging his sellout to Iran, and driving a wedge between the American people and Israel so he can bully the Israel into an unfavorable deal with the Palestinians. 

Speaking to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry ridiculously contented that Netanyahu’s opinion on Iran can’t be trusted because as a private citizen in 2002 he testified before Congress in support of a war in Iraq. As Associated Press reporter Matt Lee pointed out the next day at a State Department press briefing, that same argument could be used against Kerry since, since Kerry voted for the war resolution. 

If one reads Netanyahu’s 2002 congressional testimony at the House Government Reform Committee most of what he said came true. Netanyahu was wrong when he said Saddam had WMDs but almost every intelligence agency in the world said the same. Bibi also predicted if Saddam was toppled, Qaddafi would give up his nukes (he did) and Iran would become destabilized (it was — remember the green revolution which President Obama refused to support even with a kind word). And he predicted the Arab Spring attempt at democratization of the region.

Netanyahu also explained the only way to win the war on terror, a method President Obama has long since forgotten.

“If I had to say what are the three principles of winning the war on terror, it is like what are the three principles of real estate: location, location, location. The three principles of winning the war on terror are the three Ws: winning, winning, winning.”

Depending on which source one believes, the deal President Obama is negotiating with Iran will allow the state sponsor of terrorism to keep between 5,000 and 6,500 centrifuges. Centrifuges are the machines used to enrich uranium for various purposes. A fact not being broadcast by the President, the Democrats, and the mainstream media is that even at the higher number of centrifuges (6,500), Iran would not have the capacity to produce enough uranium to run power plants but would have the capacity to enrich uranium to make nuclear bombs.

On Feb. 18, former deputy CIA director, Mike Morell, told Charlie Rose that the potential Iran nuclear agreement would limit Iran to the number of centrifuges needed for a weapon but too few for a nuclear power program.

“If you are going to have a nuclear weapons program, 5,000 is pretty much the number you need,” Morell, now a CBS analyst, said. “If you have a power program, you need a lot more. By limiting them to a small number of centrifuges, we are limiting them to the number you need for a weapon.”

That may seem counterintuitive, but enriching uranium to the 4 to 5 percent necessary for a nuclear power plant takes almost two-thirds of the effort it takes to enrich it to the 90 percent necessary for a nuclear weapon. And much more fuel is needed to run a nuclear plant for fuel.

Morell told the Tampa Bay Times’ PunditFact that the number of centrifuges in place today is a hair over 20,000, and a likely goal is to cut that to about 5,000. The political fact-checking website said that “Morell’s basic point struck us as just plain intriguing. We wanted to learn more about this idea that a nuclear power program would require many more centrifuges than you’d need for a bomb — which by extension means that limiting centrifuge capacity is just one negotiating point out of many.” 

Georgetown University’s Matthew Kroenig told PunditFact that Morell “is absolutely correct.” As did Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association, David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, and Matthew Bunn of Harvard.

“People think surely you must need a bigger enrichment system to make 90 percent enriched material for bombs than to make 4 to 5 percent enriched material for power reactors,” Bunn said. “But exactly the opposite is true.” 

Here’s why, according to Bunn: First, you need tens of tons of material to fuel a power reactor for a year, but just tens of kilograms to make a bomb. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the threshold amount for a bomb is about 25 kilograms of the most highly enriched U-235.

So while it’s harder to make 90 percent enriched uranium (bomb) than 4 to 5 percent enriched uranium (power), it’s not that much harder according to Bunn.

“The toughest part in the process comes when you start with the raw uranium. By the time you’ve brought that to 4 to 5 percent, you’ve already done more than two-thirds of the work of going all the way to 90 percent U-235 for weapons,” Bunn said. “So the amount of work needed to make bomb material is only a modest amount more per kilogram, and the number of kilograms you need for bombs is 1,000 times less.”

This is why the 2006 U.N. resolution said Iran had to eliminate all of its centrifuges. After the 5+1 negotiations began, the word was Iran would be allowed to keep a token number of centrifuges so they can save face. But now, by most reports, the Obama administrations is looking to bring Iran down to a level where the President can look like a hero because he cut Iranian centrifuges back by 75 percent (using the 5,000 number). But what won’t be mentioned is that the 75 percent number precludes peaceful uses of the nuclear energy and only facilitates for the creation of a nuclear weapon.

Israel and the Obama administration have distinct objectives in the spat between the two governments. As mentioned above, the Presidents goals are ensuring that Netanyahu loses the upcoming election, stopping Israel from damaging the apparent sellout to Iran, and driving a wedge between the American people and Israel so he can bully the Jewish state into an unfavorable deal with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s goals are far less political: Preventing the eight-million Israelis from getting nuked into oblivion. Perhaps it is because Obama’s actions against Bibi are political he can’t see Netanyahu’s speech as having anything less than the same nefarious political intent.

It says in Vayikra 19:16, “Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor: I am Hashem.”

 

Each of the members of Congress who are boycotting the Netanyahu speech and each of the members who have “stood idly by” while the President undermines Israel — including New York’s Chuck Schumer, Steve Israel, Jerrold Nadler and Kirsten Gillibrand — may feel in their hearts they are pro-Israel, but with their lack of action the are being very anti-Israel. Their silence supports President Obama’s anti-Israel actions and maybe, without knowing it, they are supporting nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state.